Runners take part in a marathon-training run Tuesday sponsored by the Minnesota Distance Running Association in Edina. (Pioneer Press: Scott Takushi)

If you're a guy in your 20s and you want to meet women your age, maybe you should try running a marathon.

A generation or two ago, women weren't allowed to run marathons because race organizers thought the 26.2-mile race was too strenuous.

But when the race results are tallied for the 31st annual Medtronic Twin Cities Marathon on Sunday, Oct. 7, it's likely that more than 40 percent of the finishers will be women, and among marathoners in their 20s, women will outnumber men.

Last year, 43 percent of the marathon finishers were women. And while men outnumbered women among runners 30 and older, the number of women marathon finishers younger than 30 outnumbered the men of the same age group, 1,293 to 1,018.

In fact, those patterns have held true throughout the past decade of the Twin Cities Marathon, and in the most recent results for the Boston, Chicago, Philadelphia, Pittsburgh, Walt Disney World and San Diego Rock 'n' Roll marathons.

Ashley Post, 25, of Eagan will be among those running in the Twin Cities Marathon on Sunday. Thanks to a New Year's resolution, she decided "to do something I hated the most for the longest."

Before then, she said, "I'd never run for a minute in my life."

But since Post started training in March, "I have seen more women pick up the sport since they know I was running."

Running experts say the increased participation of women is part of the evolution of the sport, from a competition reserved for serious runners to something the masses could enjoy.

Advertisement

Training programs have mushroomed, helping first-time marathoners like Tanya Bushinski, 24, get ready. The St. Louis Park resident started working out with a Minnesota Distance Running Association training group this year.

"I wouldn't be able to do it if I hadn't had that group," she said.

'I THINK THERE WERE SIX OF US'

It's all a big change from 1979, when Annette LeDuc competed in her first marathon, the City of Lakes Marathon.

"I think there were six of us" female runners, LeDuc said, in a race that she recalls having about 1,000 male competitors.

LeDuc, 59, of Minneapolis, has run all 30 Twin Cities Marathons. In the marathon's first running in 1982, women made up 14 percent of the finishers. LeDuc said that early in her racing career, spectators would say: "Oh, look -- there's a woman running."

But last year, women accounted for 41 percent of the estimated 518,000 marathon finishers nationwide, up from 10 percent in 1980, according to statistics from Running USA, a nonprofit that promotes distance running.

The women's marathon didn't become an Olympic sport until 1984, but recent years have seen the emergence of marathons catering to women, like the Nike Women's Marathon in San Francisco and the Women Rock Marathon in the Twin Cities.

In the so-called second running boom, women are the dominant force. If you include all races at distances ranging from the 5K to the marathon, women made up 55 percent of the 13.9 million road race finishers in 2011, according to Running USA.

In all three Get In Gear events in the Twin Cities run April 28 -- a 5K, 10K and a half-marathon -- female finishers outnumbered male finishers.

And in last year's Medtronic TC 10 Mile, which is run the same day as the Twin Cities Marathon over part of the same course, women made up 61 percent of the finishers.

That means most likely the majority of people who will be racing down Summit Avenue in St. Paul on their way to the Capitol on Sunday will be women.

"I don't feel like anything special nowadays," said LeDuc, who plans to complete her 31st Twin Cities Marathon on Sunday. "But it's nice to see women out there."

'YOU KIND OF GET AWAY FROM EVERYTHING'

Running experts say changes in the competitive landscape, including the impact of the 40-year-old Title IX law on women's high school and collegiate athletics, have led to greater female participation in running.

The widespread Race for the Cure 5K running series, which started in 1982, also introduced many women to the sport, says Ryan Lamppa, a researcher for Running USA.

Some peg the kickoff of the second running boom to Oprah Winfrey's much-publicized running of a marathon in 1994, which helped broaden the appeal of road racing to something that people who didn't think of themselves as athletes could take part in for health, fitness and personal accomplishment.

Entertainment-oriented races like the Rock 'n' Roll marathon series and races that gave runners more and more time to finish made the marathon seem more like a fun bucket-list checkoff than a grueling grind.

Those changes helped attract more women runners.

The Portland Marathon, for example, caters to the back-of-the-pack runner, according to its event director, Les Smith. Last year, some runners took nearly 11 hours to finish the race. But nearly 53 percent of the finishers in the Portland race were women. (The Twin Cities Marathon, in comparison, closes the course after about six hours.)

Lamppa said the growth in training programs sponsored by running clubs, fitness centers, retail stores and charitable organizations like Team in Training have also made the marathon less intimidating and paved the way for first-time female marathoners. Training programs have been particularly appealing to women who like the social dynamic of running in a group, according to Lamppa.

Running writer Dimity McDowell, author of "Run Like a Mother" and "Train Like a Mother," said for time-pressed women, running with a BRF (best running friend) is a good way to combine socializing with exercising.

"It's super efficient," said McDowell, who will be speaking at the Twin Cities Marathon health and fitness expo this weekend with her co-author, Sarah Bowen Shea.

McDowell said women also have gravitated to running because it doesn't require a lot of gear -- just a pair of shoes and a sports bra -- and you can usually start just by stepping out your front door.

"I think women may be drawn to the simplicity of the sport," said Gloria Jansen, a veteran racer and coach from White Bear Lake.

"I think it's because it offers a lot of freedom," LeDuc said. "You kind of get away from everything when you're out running."

Virginia Brophy Achman, executive director of Twin Cities in Motion, which runs the Twin Cities Marathon, said she expects female participation rates to continue to climb in the race.

"I would assume over time that the number is going to go over 50 percent," she said.

As to why that's happening now only among women in their 20s, McDowell suggested that women in that age group have more freedom to make the substantial commitment in time, money and energy to prepare for a marathon.

But as they get older, get married and start raising children, they may end up shouldering more household responsibilities than men of the same age, making it more difficult for them to train for a long race.

Smith, the Portland race organizer, also said post-college-age women may be more enthusiastic runners than men because they are more concerned with health, fitness and appearance in their 20s.

"Women are always perceiving how they look and how they feel," Smith said.

"I think women have to try a little harder," said Post, the Eagan woman running her first marathon Sunday. "We understand it takes more than chugging a couple of beers to keep us fit and active."

Jansen, the White Bear Lake coach, said the question may not be why there are so many young women runners today, but why there aren't more men.

If you consider the results of the City of Lakes Trail Loppet running races held Sept. 21 in Minneapolis, she has a point.

A total of 149 women in their 20s finished either the half-marathon, the 13.1K or the 5K race that day. The number of male finishers in their 20s in those races: zero.